Approaching, finally, the beginnings of summer, DrownedinSound has had a quiet April so far mostly because we’ve been gabbling away like idiots at the thought of what a month May should be. Jens Lekman and HEALTH over in the UK on DiS-sponsored tours, Brighton’s Great Escape, both ATPs and the cherry, Primavera Sound in Barcelona.

‘Til then, though, we have the Camden Crawl – details of who we’ve got playing coming soon – and an apparently endless stream of ridiculous news stories (see below).

As well as what’s contained within the archives of this mailout, we’ve been in conversation with Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste after his band were confirmed as tour support to Radiohead and our newly-launched brother site The Quietus was to be found blood-eyed and prostrate in cider pools of bonhomie with wizard photographer Steve Gullick. Click here to hear how that sounds, being as it was recorded for podcast.

- - - Natalie Portman, with more facial hair

NewsMark E Smith set about red squirrels with hedge-clippers, a bearded man convinced Natalie Portman to be in his next video, James Brown 'died trying to come', the world was robbed of a second Calvin Harris album, Jay-Z did the Glastonbury okey-cokey as ticket sales stalled, Ringo Starr was finally beheaded in Liverpool, Doherty finally found himself in Wormwood Scrubs, Fall Out Boy were finally ditched on, Chinese Democracy was finally finished...